ORANGEBURG — People are not using trains and buses during traditional rush hours the way they once did, so Westchester and Rockland leaders should consider that when planning for future mass transit across the new Tappan Zee Bridge, the MTA’s head of planning said Friday.

Commuters are increasingly taking transit during off-peak hours, late at night and on weekends, and they’re often traveling from New York City to the suburbs, William Wheeler, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s director of special project development and planning, told the Tappan Zee Mass Transit Task Force.

“So when you come up with a solution, it’s not just going to be for the morning and evening commute,” Wheeler said. “It’s going to have to be for the middle of the day ... the evening and in many different directions.”

The 28-member task force heard three detailed presentations about travel pattern forecasts, land use and transit options during its three-hour meeting at Dominican College in Orangeburg.

Along with Wheeler, the planning commissioners from Rockland and Westchester discussed ways to inject more public transportation into the Interstate 287 corridor and beyond in order to attract employers and young people and improve services for residents.

There was chatter ranging from easing into a low-cost bus rapid transit system all the way to building a train station in Tarrytown under the new Tappan Zee Bridge, and plenty of other concepts in between.

Westchester Planning Commissioner Ed Burroughs said there were ample opportunities for redevelopment in the county, singling out the Platinum Mile in Harrison.

Those corporate office parks could be re-imagined to include housing and retail, add sidewalks and link to existing downtowns by transit.

“The challenge is connectivity,” Burroughs said.

Wheeler noted most transit trips occur within the same county, and they tend to draw more riders as services get better.

“Depending on how good you can make this transportation, particularly in the I-287 corridor or your other major corridors, you will attract additional travel, particularly by transit for non-work purposes,” he said.

(Page 2 of 2)

The task force, which comprises elected officials from Rockland, Westchester and Putnam, along with individuals from private regional organizations, plans to present its final short-, medium- and long-range recommendations to the New York State Thruway Authority in November.

Preliminary construction of the $3.9 billion Tappan Zee Bridge is set to begin next month with the opening of its first span three years away.

The task force has been meeting monthly since December but this was its first discussion before the public. Some 40 people attended.

“These are not new concepts,” Rockland County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef said. “These concepts have been talked about for over a decade.”

Task force member Larry Salley, former Westchester County Transportation Commissioner, said that aside from the capital investment that would be required for make transit a reality, the group was also responsible for identifying ways to pay for its operating costs.

“Without some innovative way of financing whatever system we come up with, we will once again have missed the mark,” Salley said.

Orrin Getz, a New City resident who was representing the Empire State Passengers Association, said the task force needed to coordinate with New Jersey Transit and that state’s transportation planning organization about regional transit. He also asked why someone from Clarkstown wasn’t on the task force, considering Ramapo, Nyack, South Nyack, Tarrytown and White Plains were all represented.

Richard Gualtieri, a transportation advocate from Staten Island, said the state should create a high-occupancy toll lane on I-287 that would be free for transit buses and could charge drivers a premium for a faster trip.

Ramapo Town Supervisor and task force member Christopher St. Lawrence said all options were still being considered.

Task force co-chair Tom Madison, who is executive director of the state Thruway Authority, said the group would begin to narrow down the concepts and review them at their meetings over the summer as they worked their way toward final recommendations.

“We’ve started to bring the vision into focus a little bit,” Madison said.